How to Fall In Love While Watching Someone Clean Up Puke
by rhyejess
Summary: Marauder shenanigans with a background Remus/Sirius.


When Remus woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his right hand was glued to the floor. His eyes popped open at this realization and he saw the ceiling of the Gryffindor Common Room swimming meters above his head. He turned to free his hand and only then caught his three best mates passed out with him in a circle on the floor. A rather gooey circle, he saw. All of them were glued to the floor to some degree, though he seemed to have escaped the worst of it. Unfortunately, Sirius was veritably swimming in a puddle of tawny-colored goo and likely would _never_ be able to extricate himself. Remus shook the remains of goo from his fingers to no avail. He would need to wash his hands. Sirius would probably need to throw out his clothes and take a shower. James and Peter were each less affected: Peter only gooed up from his foot left knee and James goo-free except for the fact that his left cheek was pressed into the stuff. As were his glasses. Ouch.

Because Sirius was both Remus's current romantic entanglement and the Marauder most entangled in goo, Remus shook his shoulder first. Sirius started awake, but when his eyes fluttered open and found Remus above him, he sighed and whispered "Moony".

"What is this stuff?" Remus asked.

"What stu-" Sirius tried to sit up and found he had significant difficulty. "Oh. That stuff." He slid back into the goo, his eyes fluttering closed in exhaustion. "What time is it?"

"Late enough. Come on, I'll pull you up."

Sirius opened his eyes again and managed to free one hand so that Remus could clasp it. With a great heave, Remus was able to help Sirius extract himself. "Was this a hex?"

"Huh?" Sirius looked back down at the carpet. "Oh. No. I, uh, spilled the kettle of hot cocoa all over the caramel corn."

"Why is it so _sticky_?"

"The caramel corn was a bit heavy on the caramel and light on the corn. Sorry, you missed a lot after you passed out."

"Evidently," Remus agreed. From the way Sirius was frowning and squinting, though, Remus gathered that one thing he was glad to miss was the hangover. "You need a shower," he told Sirius. "In fact, the entire Common Room looks like it needs a shower."

"Well," Sirius shrugged, "we've got to give those house elves _something_ to do."

"With us around, I hardly expect that they're sitting around doing nothing. Come on, help me wake the others."

Sirius hefted Peter up with ease, but looked much less easy when Peter leaned over and threw up into the seat of an arm chair. "_Now_ I feel bad for the elves," Sirius muttered.

When Remus roused James, James only whined once in pain before climbing to his feet, his glasses still stuck in the goo. "Sirius," James asked, "why is the floor covered with diarrhea?"

Peter, still looking green and holding his stomach, answered. "Caramel and cocoa."

"Why-" James started asking. "Never mind, I do not want to know."

Sirius winked at Remus. "James bowed out only about ten minutes after you. He's just too proud to the be first to throw in the towel."

"Whereas _I_," Peter said with as much smugness as he could muster through his nausea, "Out-drank Sirius. For the first time ever. You may now applaud."

Sirius alone applauded, slapping his hands together as loudly as he could and causing Peter to wince and run for the loo this time.

"That was mean," Remus said.

"He _asked_ me to," Sirius replied in mock innocence.

"Alright, you two, help me clean this up," James interrupted.

"The elves-" Sirius started.

"Do not deserve _this_," James finished Sirius's sentence, remaking it to be more to his own liking as he often did. "Come on, where's your wand Padfoot?"

Sirius searched his pockets and the floor before finding his wand, half-buried in the caramel muck, underneath a couch cushion he had presumably tried but failed to use as a sleeping pillow as the couch cushion was about five feet away from where Remus had found Sirius sleeping.

"What were you _doing_?" Remus whispered under his breath. "I never understand drunk people."

"Drunk people don't understand ourselves," James added. "It's one of the pleasures of being drunk. Moony, if you like you are excused from cleaning detail."

"No," Remus sighed, "I'll help."

"There's a fine lad," Sirius said, grinning at Remus, and in Sirius's smile Remus saw something else. Shame? Apology? Did it even matter? Without James to direct him, would Sirius still have cleaned this mess? Sometimes Remus worried that he didn't know who Sirius was, not really, not even after years of friendship and three weeks now of something distinctly _more_. But then, the fact that Sirius was an ever-unfolding mystery was one of the reasons Remus was so fascinated by him.

Casting a few cleaning spells on his designated patch of carpet, Remus glanced up to see that Sirius was cleaning the puke-coated armchair, his teeth gritted against the likelihood of adding to the mess. In that moment, seeing Sirius take on the most odious task without complaint, a blossom of affection spread through Remus's chest. There were clearly layers here that Remus had not discovered yet, but oh how he was looking forward to learning their secrets.


End file.
